Celebrate Global Poetry Prompt Appreciation Day (8/8/08)

On the eve of Global Poetry Prompt Appreciation Day, which Jay Robinson and I have declared, here in Olin Hall, just now, we are offering you a cornucopia of poetry exercises to jump start your writing. I know that some people don't like prompts, and think you should rely on your own bad self for inspiration. But for those of us who need an assignment, or some kind of push, prompts are invaluable.

Would you like to join the celebration? If so, please reply and either give your thoughts on prompts, or give us a prompt (either one you've used before, or one that you've created on your own). This will be a regular prompt-o-rama! Who needs the opening ceremonies of the Olympics when there's an amphitheatre of poetry prompt goodness right at your fingertips?

Go look in a garbage can and write a poem about its contents, without revealing, of course, that you are writing about a garbage can and its contents.

Find an old poem of yours that you didn’t like. Start a new poem that uses the first and last line of the old poem.

Write a poem inspired by a headline from a newspaper or magazine.

Write a poem using all enjambed lines.

Write a poem that begins with an actual memory from childhood and completely fictionalizes a number of elements of the memory.

PROMPTS FROM MARY BIDDINGER

Write a poem with no adjectives, or as few adjectives as possible. It's okay to be specific, however, and to use colors.

Write a disappearing poem, or a reappearing poem (one that either loses a line with each subsequent stanza, ending with a one-line final stanza, or performs the reverse).

Write a poem that conveys the sense of a temperature without ever mentioning the temperature (hot, cold). You can substitute temperature for any intangible thing, really.

Write a poem using the following words, taken randomly from my dictionary as I sit here: furrow, orchid, rubric, balm, torch. If you aren't able to use a word or two in the poem itself, try working it into the title.

Write a poem about a character who is outside his/her usual or expected setting (a cowboy on the tundra, etc).

Write a poem that strives to enact something from a piece of music, but without naming the music.

Write a poem that uses almost all end-stopped lines. It's harder than you'd think.

Please let us know how your Global Poetry Prompt Appreciation Day festivities are going tomorrow. I hope this holiday is very fruitful and enjoyable for all!

Egads! (Sorry, I have always wanted to use the word "egads" in a comment). I am a bit workshopped out right now, but I have to say that I love prompts. And they are great for teaching -- I'm not sure what would happen in my creative writing class if told my students to write from their own inspiration.

I love prompts! My "Alcoholic Hausfrau..." poem only exists because bouts rimes sonnets are so promptilicious. I remember my BG office mate prompted me to write a sci-fi story that had to a.) refer to a goatee, b.) refer to another grad student, and c.) use the word phallocentric. It was a good...paragraph or two. They're fun. I have a book (mostly unread) called Creating Poetry—about 200 pages of prompts—by John Drury that I'm going to dig into someday when I have less on my plate.

Here's one that piggybacks on an earlier post of yours: Write a poem that takes a "rule" about writing poetry -- either one of your own, or someone else's rule -- and breaks it, flagrantly, multiple times, without irony.

(One of my favorite poems I've ever written came from doing that -- I read an essay that claimed poets could no longer get away with doing a certain thing, and I said oh yeah? and did it but good. I don't usually write in opposition to things, so it was great fun to try it.)

I have that same book Jay's holding ("The Practice of Poetry"). I use the "20 Little Poetry Projects" exercise all the time. I think prompts/exercises are great tools, especially when you're stumped/locked up.

I live in glorious Akron, Ohio, where I write poems, edit the Akron Series in Poetry, and teach literature and creative writing. I am the author of five full-length collections of poems, including A Sunny Place with Adequate Water, Small Enterprise, and the collaborative poetry collection The Czar, with Jay Robinson (all from Black Lawrence Press). I've received an NEA fellowship in poetry, and several individual excellence awards from the Ohio Arts Council. In 2019 my first collection of prose poems, Partial Genius, is due to drop from BLP.
In my spare time, I like to photograph garbage.